Bail set for father charged in killing of baby

Sunday

Nov 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMNov 29, 2009 at 10:35 AM

The mother of a 9-month-old boy who died of internal injuries Wednesday interrupted courtroom proceedings with an emotional outburst yesterday morning to ask that the man charged with killing the child not be allowed to harass her.

The mother of a 9-month-old boy who died of internal injuries Wednesday interrupted courtroom proceedings with an emotional outburst yesterday morning to ask that the man charged with killing the child not be allowed to harass her.

Ashley Gather said Harold C. Warner had called her three times from the Franklin County jail. She said Warner was trying to intimidate her. Standing behind a Plexiglas partition, she demanded that Franklin County Municipal Judge W. Dwayne Maynard stop the calls.

Warner, who requested protective custody, was ordered by Maynard not to have any unsupervised contact with children or with the child's mother.

Veronica Hill, the child's great aunt, said Ashley Gather was too distraught yesterday morning to discuss the situation further.

Warner, 24, was arrested Wednesday by homicide detectives at his Far East Side apartment. He is charged with murder and was in the Franklin County jail yesterday afternoon. Maynard set his bail yesterday morning at $25,085.

A preliminary hearing for Warner will be held Friday morning.

Warner told police that he found the baby not breathing in their bathtub Tuesday night. An autopsy by the Franklin County coroner's office showed that the infant had been assaulted.

"His version of the events did not match the child's injuries," Columbus police detective James S. Porter said.

Warner told detectives that he briefly left his son in the water-filled tub and, when he returned, the child was not breathing. He was at home alone with the child.

The boy was in full cardiac arrest when Columbus paramedics took him from the Winding Creek Apartments, 4609 Refugee Rd., at 8:30 Tuesday night. Sylahs died in the intensive-care unit about 3 a.m.

Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said the child died of internal injuries, including a damaged liver. There was evidence that the injuries had been inflicted recently, she said. The charges also say the baby had been shaken.